Obscured by Clouds. The rough and ready blog of a cloud benighted biologist and amateur astronomer. Astroblog will cover my interests in astronomy, biology and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Iridium Flare Below The Moon and Jupiter 15-05-16 (18:50)

Location of iridium flare at 18:50:48 ACST as seen from Adelaide. The star marks to flare location.

This evening in about 40 minutes an iridium flare will occur just below the Moon and Jupiter as seen from Adelaide. The flare will only be around magnit-1, but the combination of Jupiter, the Moon and the flare will look nice. See Heavens Above http://www.heavens-above.com/

Hi Ian,Happy to have stumbled across your site. I'd say that's what we saw in Melbourne last night between say 20:45 and 21:15 though it seemed stationary for ages and after contacting someone around 20 minutes later they could see it from a different suburb so it seemed to linger for a while. We could see what seemed to be a tail or protrusions vaguely (naked eyes)and light variations creating shadows across whatever it was but it had more of a hovering kind of vibe rather than a flash across the sky. Anyway, the location in the sky is exactly where it was from our view. Thanks for clearing up the mystery!